Volume II Part 50 (1/2)
This beacon stands on a conical hill, at an elevation of 1545 feet from the level of the sea. An immense pile of wood was raised here when the alarm of the French invasion prevailed, at the beginning of the present century.
Rivington Hall was for many ages the seat of one of the Pilkingtons, of which family Fuller says--”The Pilkingtons were gentlemen of repute in this s.h.i.+re before the Conquest;” and the chief of them, then sought for after espousing the cause of Harold, was fain to disguise himself as a mower; in allusion to which the man and scythe was taken as their crest. James Pilkington, a descendant, and Master of St John's, Cambridge, was one of the six divines appointed to correct the Book of Common Prayer; for which and other services he was in 1560 created Bishop of Durham. After the suppression of the great northern rebellion in 1569, headed by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, he claimed the lands and goods of the rebels attainted in his bishopric. In support of this claim he brought an action against the queen for a recovery of the forfeited estates; and though his royal mistress was accustomed to speak of unfrocking bishops, the reverend divine prosecuted his suit with so much vigour and success that nothing but the interposition of Parliament prevented the defendant from being beaten in her own courts.
The present erection, the scene of our story, was built in the year 1732, by Mr Andrews, the owner of Rivington Hall, whose family have for many generations--with, perhaps, one interruption only--had it in possession.
The evening was still and sultry. The clear and glowing daylight was gone, exchanged for the dull, hazy, and depressing atmosphere of a summer's night. The cricket chirped in the walls, and the beetle hummed his drowsy song, wheeling his lumbering and lazy flight over the shorn meadows.
[Ill.u.s.tration: RIVINGTON PIKE.
_Drawn by G. Pickering.
_ _Engraved by Edw^d Finden._]
It was about harvest-time--the latter end of August. The moors were clothed in their annual suit of gay and thickly-cl.u.s.tered blossoms, but their bloom and freshness was now faded. Here and there a sad foretokening of dingy brown pervaded the once glowing brilliancy of their dye, like a suit of tarnished finery on some withering and dilapidated beau.
A party of sportsmen had that day taken an unusually wide range upon the moors, stretching out in wild and desolate grandeur through the very centre of the county, near the foot of which stands the populous neighbourhood of Bolton-le-Moors. Rivington Pike, an irregularly conical hill rising like a huge watch-tower from these giant ma.s.ses of irreclaimable waste, is a conspicuous and well-known object, crowned by a stone edifice for the convenience of rest and shelter to those whom curiosity urges to the fatigue and peril of the ascent. The view from this elevated spot, should the day be favourable, certainly repays the adventurer; but not unfrequently an envious mist or a pa.s.sing shower will render these efforts unavailing, to scan the wide creation--or rather but a circlet of that creation--from an insignificant hillock, scarcely an atom in the heap of created matter, that is itself but as a grain of dust in the vast s.p.a.ce through which it rolls. But to our tale, or rather, it may be, to our task--for the author is now sitting in his study, with the twilight of as dull, hazy, and oppressive an atmosphere about him as beset our adventurous sportsmen at the close of their campaign; enervating and almost paralysing thought; the veriest foe of ”soaring fantasy,” which the mere accident of weather will prevent from rising into the region where she can reign without control, her prerogative unquestioned and unlimited.
The party to whom we have just referred consisted of three individuals, with their servants, biped and quadruped, from whom their masters derived the requisite a.s.sistance during their useful and arduous exploits--the results being conspicuous in the death of some dozen or two of silly grouse or red game, with which these hills are tolerably well supplied during the season. But alas! we are not sportsmen ourselves, and bitterly do we lament that we are unable to describe the desperate conflict, and the mighty issues of that memorable day; the hopes, fears, and _fire-escapes_ of the whole party: the consumption of powder, and the waste of flint, or the comparative merits of Moll and Rover, we shall not attempt to set forth in our ”_veritable prose_,” lest we draw down the wrath of some disappointed fowler upon us for meddling with matters about which we are so lamentably ignorant, and we are afraid to say, in some measure, wilfully deficient. To the spoils, when obtained, it may be that we are less indifferent; and we hail, with favourable reminiscences and antic.i.p.ations, the return of another 12th of August--an era which we would earnestly and affectionately beseech our friends to remember likewise, for purposes too interesting in the history of our domestic arrangements to allow them willingly to forget.
But the August in which our narrative opens was many years ago--though not precisely in the olden time--when the belief in old-world fancies and delights was not in danger of being blazed out by ”diffusions of useful knowledge,” which ”useful” knowledge consists in dissipating some of our most pleasant dreams, our fondest and most cherished remembrances. We are afraid a writer of ”Traditions” must be looked upon with inconceivable scorn by those worthies whose aim is to throw open the portals of Truth to the mult.i.tude; or, as the phrase goes, she is to be made plain to the ”meanest capacity.” For our own parts, we were never enamoured with that same despotic, hard-favoured, cross-grained G.o.ddess, Truth: she ”commendeth not” to our fancy; nor in reality is she half so worthy of their homage as her ardent and enthusiastic wors.h.i.+ppers imagine. We are more than ever inclined to believe that imagination is the great source of our pleasures; and in consequence we look not with an eye of favour on those who would persuade us that our little h.o.a.rd of enjoyment is counterfeit, not being the sterling coin of sovereign and ”immutable truth.”
Little did we imagine or antic.i.p.ate that we should be so deviously betrayed from our subject. We never had the temerity to speak of ourselves before. Thoughts, wishes, and opinions were studiously concealed; and if we have been led unwarily and unintentionally from the subject in this our concluding effort, that very circ.u.mstance alone is a sufficient warranty against a repet.i.tion of the offence.
The day was fast closing when the party had surmounted the last hill on their return to the valley. For the sake of proximity, they had spent the previous night in a little way-side tavern at the foot of the descent; and they now looked down towards the place of their destination, still some weary miles distant--their prospect partly interrupted by the huge hill called the Pike, of which we have before spoken. From the elevation whereon they now stood the ascent was but short to the summit of the beacon, though somewhat abrupt and difficult of access. When they had gained the ridge overlooking the valley, with the flat and fertile tract of low lands stretching out into the dark and apparently interminable vista towards the coast, the elder of the sportsmen exclaimed--
”Now, Mortimer, mayhap you have never seen a storm in our wilds; but, if my judgment err not, this happy event is in a very auspicious train for accomplishment.”
The speaker looked towards the south, where the grim clouds were already acc.u.mulated, evidently pouring out a copious blessing in their progress. From the direction of the wind they too were threatened with a speedy partic.i.p.ation.
”These summer storms always make for the hills,” continued he; ”and, looking yonder, I apprehend that we are precisely in the very line of its path.”
”I do like to watch the gathering of a storm, Pilkington,” replied Mortimer. ”Surely the outpouring vials of its wrath must be terrifically sublime in these regions. I would not miss so glorious a sight for the world.”
”In a snug shelter maybe at our hostelrie below, with a mug of the right barley-bree buzzing at our elbow--oat-cake and cheese conformable thereto.”
”Nay, here; with the sky opening above our heads, and the broad earth reeking and weltering under the wide grasp of the tempest. See! how the crooked lightning darts between the coiled clouds, like a swift messenger from yon dark treasure-house of wrath!”
This was said by a third individual, named Norton, a young man who lived in the neighbourhood; a friend and former school-fellow of the preceding speakers--only one of whom, Mortimer, resided in a distant county, and was on a visit with Norton for the first time.
”Like a train of gunpowder, perhaps, thou meanest, Norton?” said the less enthusiastic Pilkington, whose residence, too, was but a few miles distant; ”and, furthermore, I warn ye all, that unless we can house, and that right speedily, we shall have the storm about our heads, and maybe lose our way if the mist comes on, or get soused over head and ears in some bog-trap. We'll climb yonder hill, Norton, whence we may survey the broil and commotion from our 'watch-tower in the skies,' under a tidy roof and a dry skin. Thou mayest tarry here an thou wilt, and offer thyself a sacrifice on these altars of Jupiter Pluvius.”
The whole party--dogs, helps, and servants--were soon sheltered in the little square tower upon the summit, and the predictions of the elder and more experienced of them were soon verified. Almost on the entrance of the last of the group came down the deluge in one broad sheet, an ”even-down pour,” so loud and terrible, accompanied by a burst of hail, that they were threatened with an immediate invasion of their citadel through several crevices in both roof and windows.
A peal of thunder, loud, long, and appalling, shook their shelter to its base. The very foundations of the hill seemed to rock with the concussion. Their lofty tabernacle hung suspended in the very bosom of the clouds, big with their forky terrors. The lightning began to hiss and quiver, and the sky to open its wide jaws above them, as though to devour its prey. The roar and rattle of the wind and hail, mingled with the crash and roll of the contending elements, made the stoutest of them tremble, and silenced several loud tongues that were generally the foremost in jest and banter.
”Well, Norton,” said Pilkington, ”I reckon you are not in the mind to try a berth abroad in this rude atmosphere during such an angry and merciless disposition of your deity. 'Tis a _melee_, I imagine, to your heart's content.”
”Norton is hearkening to these rude tongues that do speak so l.u.s.tily!”
said Mortimer. ”He can, peradventure, interpret their mystic voice.”
Norton was in the att.i.tude of intense and earnest expectation or inquiry; his head slightly turned and depressed on one side, the opposite ear raised, so as to catch the most distinct impressions of sound. His eyes might have been listening too, yet his vision was absorbed, and apparently withdrawn from surrounding objects. He was standing near the window, and the workings of his countenance betrayed a strange and marvellous expression of wonder and anxiety.